Instrumentation kits have increased in popularity for performing surgical procedures. These instrumentation kits typically contain any number of surgical devices which enable a surgeon to perform a specific form of surgery. For instance, in a cardiovascular instrumentation kit, the surgeon may be capable of performing open heart surgery. In contrast, a bowel surgical instrumental kit may allow the surgeon to perform a surgical anastomosis.
Heretofore, these instrumentation kits have been contained in one sterile package. This may result in the contamination of an entire surgical instrumentation kit even though not all of the instruments are used. This may be especially true if a surgical instrumentation kit combines a surgical instrument with a reloadable unit such as a cartridge. Furthermore, it has been realized no previous surgical instrumentation kits have contained reloadable units, such as cartridges. It has, rather, been the hospital's responsibility to provide these reloading units separately from the surgical instrumental kits.
Moreover, none of the present surgical instrumentation kits provide for a drug applying mechanism, or a package containing sutures. Neither of these have been provided, because it has always been felt that the use of such mechanisms would be supplied in the operating room, and not necessarily as a requirement for performing the surgery. Thus, previously, surgical instrumentation kit suppliers have not included instruments such as sutures and/or drug applying mechanisms in their kits.